Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv, or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twiv.

For some time I have thought about reviewing this year’s topics on virology blog in 2001, not only to get a sense of what I thought was significant, but more importantly, to highlight areas that need more coverage. I went through all the articles I wrote in 2011, put them in subject categories, and listed them by number of articles. The results are both obvious and surprising.

I wrote most frequently about the retrovirus XMRV and its possible role in chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer. This extensive coverage was warranted because we had an opportunity to learn how disease etiology is established, followed by development of therapeutics. By the end of the year we learned that XMRV does not cause human disease, but the journey to that point was highly instructive.

The next most frequently visited topic on virology blog was influenza. Writing often about this virus makes sense because it is a common human infection that occurs every year, and controlling it is a continuing goal of virology research.

Like many others, I find the biggest viruses and their virophages compelling.

Megavirus, the biggest known virus (Jean-Michel Claverie, one of the discoverers of Mimivirus and Megavirus, wrote “Your paper is a well summarized account of the main points raised by the discovery of Megavirus chilensis and its amazing gene content. Great job.”

The state of science education and science funding is becoming more of a concern. It is not a topic I write about often – I prefer to focus on the science of virology – but for future scientists it is extremely important.

What have I learned from looking back? The best covered viruses – XMRV, influenza, and poliovirus – deserve the attention. I am surprised that there were so few articles on important viruses such as HIV, HCV, rotaviruses, and herpesviruses. That shortcoming will have to change. I did not write enough about basic virology. One could argue that teaching a virology course is enough – but I think that concise, informative articles on basic virology are very useful. I’ll try to do more of that in 2012. There is one topic I’d like to write less about, but over which I have little control – the passing of scientists.

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Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv, or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twiv.

Dennis Lim at the New York Times has a review of the upcoming virus thriller ‘Contagion’. According to script consultant (and my CU colleague) Ian Lipkin, he went through great efforts to make the movie realistic:

There isn’t anything in the laboratory part of the film that hasn’t either been done with a bona fide surrogate or assembled from something that was real.

I hope Ian is right. In science fiction movies liberties are always taken to make the story more compelling and scary. For me this is problematic because non-scientists often think what they see in such stories is real.

I’m sure we’ll have a rousing discussion here about the movie once it is released in September.

“Contagion” follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. At the same time, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.

Contagion is the name of a new action-thriller movie about a global outbreak of a deadly viral disease. Slated to be released in 2011, it is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Lawrence Fishburne. That’s certainly an outstanding crew, but will they get the science right?

According to Beyond Hollywood, “the film will have most of the big names playing doctors who are called to duty by the Centers for Disease Control when a major viral outbreak starts killing people around the world. The cast will then be split up and jet off to different continents.” Dread Central calls it ‘the deadly viral outbreak film of the decade’. Apparently Jude Law will play “a kind of unbridled blogger who’s a sort of scaremonger. Basically, it’s about a deadly virus unleashed and you see it from many different points of view, whether it be the public, medical care, politicians.”

The particular virus involved in Contagion has not been identified, but I have a good source which tells me that it’s a paramyxovirus. That’s not too hard to believe since the lethal Hendra and Nipah viruses are both members of the same family.

We’ll have to wait for more information to determine if the science in the film is credible. I do know that a prominent virologist, for whom I have a great deal of respect, has been hired as a script consultant. Whether or not the director and writer actually listen to that virologist is another question.

Moviegoers may know about the eponymous 2001 sci-fi movie (pictured) in which a group of terrorists concocted a seemingly unstoppable strain of Ebola. The first target is the President of the United States. Scientific reality just isn’t exciting enough for the movies.